The Commandant General Royal Marines also Major-General Training and Special Forces Royal Marines, had been present at this interview. They and the Chief of the Defence Staff knew exactly what had happened, in surprising detail, but the CDS had wanted to hear at first hand Hislop’s own specialist view of Ockley’s actions — and his justification of them or otherwise — and current prospects.
‘In terms of the decision he took after he landed on that beach. Up to that point I wouldn’t have any criticism; I accept that the task could have been completed before that if it hadn’t been for circumstances quite beyond his control.’
Not a bad start. At least Ockley wasn’t being condemned out of hand. Hislop glanced at the two Marine generals, guessing that some of this clear-sightedness might have been inspired by them. Then he put himself as it were in Ben 0ckley’s trainers on that patch of Syrian shingle, and gave the CDS a breakdown from the SB Squadron’s angle on the problems/options facing the team leader in that kind of situation.
‘Sounds as if you’re accepting the responsibility yourself.’
‘I think I have to, sir. I’d stressed the importance of stopping Swale, the consequences if we failed. On that beach he’d have known he couldn’t be far behind them, still had a good chance, and—’
‘And ignored the fact that those people invented an SBS identity for some scurrilous purpose, and he was giving them another eight.’
He kept his mouth shut. When a man was right, and he knew you knew it, there wasn’t much point arguing.
‘But you’d have done the same?’
‘I — believe I would.’ He wasn’t certain; you’d have had to have been there to be positive about it. But Ockley could have the benefit of the doubt. ‘I also think he’ll pull it off, sir.’
‘Kill Swale and come out intact?’ An eyebrow cocked… ‘Well, let’s hope you’re right. But my God…’
Hislop glanced at the CGRM. Meeting a look of empathy, but also the same appreciation of stark realities: the fact there might be no limits to the size of the upheaval that could follow Ben Ockley’s ‘local initiative’.
The CDS raised that precise point now. ‘You referred to what you call “local initiative”, Hislop. As — well, a doctrine, more or less. Would you say Ockley was under an obligation to exercise such initiative?’
‘Definitely, sir. It’s the nature of the job.’
‘But—’ the Major-General Special Forces interjected — ‘local initiative could have been applied the other way — in a decision to withdraw.’
‘That’s a good point.’ The Chief of the Defence Staff nodded. Then looked back at Hislop. ‘However. For the time being we’ve spent enough time on spilt milk. He’s in there — for better or for worse, and I don’t think there’s much doubt which… Let me hear now what if anything you’d suggest might be done to help him. Any ideas?’
‘I’d say it’s in his hands, sir. At least until he gets his team off that coast.’ An idea was dawning as he spoke; he went on, ‘But you very helpfully paved the way for the Americans to send in a Super Stallion, to lift the Sea-Rider team out this morning, and I hear they’ve offered a repeat performance for sunrise on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. So — if so — might they be persuaded to do the job a few miles inside Syrian waters, if that seemed necessary? Ockley’s boats won’t be exactly speedy, and if the Syrians are even half awake — well…’ He shrugged. ‘The cousins mightn’t want to stick their necks out that far, of course. They’ve got hostages in Syrian-controlled Lebanon, for instance. But if they would — maybe just turn a blind eye to navigational error?’
CDS ad glanced at the Marine lieutenant-general.
‘I really don’t know whether they would go that far… And on any such question you have to bear in mind that we’re looking ahead by one, two, even three days, by which time — well, it’s a potentially volatile situation, the fat might be in the fire by then, so what could look like an acceptable risk now might by then be something very different.’
‘Except—’ the major-general offered — ‘If Ockley gets Swale and then comes out with his team — which I agree with Hislop he’s perfectly capable of doing — plus the fact, as I understand it, that he may be up against not the Syrian establishment but only some group of activists — well, seems to me there’s an excellent chance –’
‘You may well be right.’ A jerk of the head, then, denying it. ‘Personally, I’m — less optimistic… But don’t misunderstand me — I’m with you, in the sense that if we’re up the creek so be it, we’re up the bloody creek and that’s it. All we can do, before hysterics start, is try to limit the political damage by achieving military success. Then we won’t have to look stupid both ways, and we’ll be less likely to have eight Royal Marines behind bars in Damascus. Right?’
None of them was arguing. The CDS asked Hislop, ‘What about this suggestion of sending a Nimrod over to contact him by means of a search-and-rescue beacon?’
‘I’ve just been discussing that, sir, with the sergeant who brought the boats back. Apparently Ockley intended it only as something we might want, if we wanted to know what had happened about Swale, particularly.’
A frown… ‘In those circumstances it would be immaterial whether the Swale threat still existed or did not, surely.’
Hislop nodded. The Syrians wouldn’t need to bother with Swale, then. They could throw him away, they’d want to forget him. They’d have no need for subterfuge, they’d have the real thing, undeniable and indefensible.
‘On the other hand I’d like to know what he’s up to, and whether there’s any support we can usefully give him. Such as your suggestion of a coastal pick-up by helicopter. I like the idea of establishing communications, if it can be done. One wouldn’t lightly contemplate intruding in someone else’s airspace, in normal circumstances, but in this instance it might be — might be justified… I suppose a Nimrod would be the choice. Fast enough — and it could be lightly loaded, wouldn’t want to hang around, would it… What about Syrian ground-to-air?’
‘At the last count they had twenty-six surface-to-air missile batteries.’ The CGRM, or someone on his staff, had evidently been doing some homework. ‘Equipped with Guidelines, Goas, Gainfuls and Gaskins. But none deployed in that area as far as we know.’
‘Might have that checked out, Mike. Meanwhile I’ll have a word with the Minister; and I’ve a feeling he may want to chew it over with Herself. But I do think the Sarbe proposal’s an option we should consider, amongst others. Your boy’s landed us right in it, Hislop, but we won’t get out of it by contemplating our navels, will we.’
*
A touch of the ‘local initiatives‘ even at that level. Hislop thought. Largely, he guessed, because of the reality and size of the Swale threat. And from that point of view he’d sensed underlying sympathy with young Benjamin.
There was a contrasting absence of it at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, however, this Thursday morning. The meeting had been called for 10 a.m., and a call to Poole from the office of Major-General Special Forces had caused Hislop to come up for it. He climbed the steps from the courtyard at five minutes to the hour, finding that John Bremner of SIS had beaten him to it.
‘Well, Major. You on tranquillisers yet? I’ll bet these guys are…’
The meeting resulted from a research initiative originating in the Ministry of Defence Secretariat and necessarily involving the FCO, but in fact it was a spin-off from that conference yesterday in the office of the Chief of Defence Staff. Hislop had been on his feet, about to back out from the great man’s presence, when MGTSF had come up with a proposal which in fact Hislop had put to him earlier: another para drop, with the Sea-Riders and the same crews, to R/V close inshore with the Special Boat Squadron team at a time and date to be fixed through the Nimrod/Sarbe operation. It had seemed like a good idea — at least to be ready to lay it on at short notice; there was after all no certainty that the Americans would be willing to lift the team out of Syrian terri
torial waters. Decisions had been made, therefore, (1) to have a replacement outboard motor flown at once to Akrotiri, (2) to take advice from FCO, SIS and other sources as to whether there’d been any unusual activity, either diplomatic or military, inside Syria. Answers to these enquiries might affect decisions on either an air intrusion or the re-use of the Sea-Riders, or both.
It wasn’t a big meeting. Hugh Vestey — decidedly on edge, Hislop thought — presided, in a boardroom-like section of his own office suite, and the only others present besides Hislop and Bremner were the MoD’s Secretariat Officer — a man named Bennett, who as usual sported a Gunners’ tie — and an assistant of Vestey’s who took notes.
Not that there was very much to take notes of. Vestey informed his civil service colleague at the outset that ‘the Office’ had received no reports of any unusual proceedings, diplomatic or otherwise, in Syria, and that in answer to the direct question the ambassador had cabled that with President Assad still away in Moscow very little at all was happening in Damascus.
Vestey looked across the polished mahogany table at Bremner.
‘That announcement on the BBC World Service yesterday, John — about an RAF air/sea rescue exercise having ended in a real emergency, a rescue launch breaking down and drifting in Syrian territorial waters, lost all night and finally located by a Nimrod, recovered under tow from a second launch?’ His smile was faintly ironic. ‘Did I get that right?’
Bremner looked surprised. ‘Now you mention it — yes, I read a transcript of it. I gather the statement was put out by the RAF PR department in MoD.’
Hislop had heard of it, too, and thought the seed had most likely been sown by Bremner. Vestey asked, ‘D’you think the Syrians will have swallowed it?’
‘Don’t see why not. I would’ve. Of course, I’m neither a nautical nor aeronautical expert. But I’d have thought it might explain the slow return of the Sea-Riders and all those Nimrod comings and goings.’ He shrugged. ‘There are people who actually like to have their suspicions explained away, you know.’
Bremner then came up with the only ‘hard’ intelligence there was — and at first sight even this didn’t seem all that interesting — namely that Hafiz Al-Jubran had been in touch with his girlfriend, Miss Thornton of the British Embassy in Damascus. Hafiz had telephoned her to say that for a short time he was back at his desk in the Interior Ministry, working like mad to clear it and therefore see her — much as he’d been missing her, longing for a reunion with her, etc. He had to leave town again very shortly, consequently didn’t have a minute for anything but work; he’d be back next week, he hoped, and the first thing he’d do would be to call her.
Vestey looked annoyed. ‘How did you hear about this?’
Bremner shrugged. ‘Gossip. You know…’
‘And what’s its value to us?’
He explained to Bennett, ‘I’d say the implication is that he believes the Swale operation’s progressing as planned. And it is, of course, from their angle as we know it is. The point is that it tells us he doesn’t know we’re on to it.’
‘How does it tell us that?’
‘The fact that he was taking the trouble to keep the girl sweet. Being careful not to appear to have broken the affair off just at this moment, thus confirming any suspicion she might have had that he’d only been screwing her in order to set her up for his planted leak. Thus we’re supposed to have accepted the leak at its face value.’
‘All right, but—’
‘Which I submit indicates that the cat is not among the pigeons. Or wasn’t at that stage — yesterday noon. I had the report on my desk last night. But I’m afraid that’s the best I can do for you, in terms of what you wanted from this meeting.’
Bennett nodded. ‘It‘s something. In fact—’ a glance at Vestey ‘together with your lack of any stirrings in Damascus, it’s probably all we needed.’
Not a difficult man to satisfy, Hislop thought. He and Bremner left together. On the pavement — the SIS man was in need of a taxi, whereas Hislop had only a few yards to walk to MoD — Bremner said, ‘You might be interested to hear that our friends at Five have nobbled the lurking mole?’
‘Well… So your scenario was on target.’
‘Can’t always guess wrong. But he was one of my lot. Duty officer that night in the annexe. Due for early retirement shortly, disgruntled, just the guy for it. But he’s come clean, and Five know the people who put him up to it — a couple, live in Hampstead, an educational publisher with some funny friends. He was already on the books, they say.’
‘So what happens to them all?’
‘Whatever Five think best, really. The mole’s taken even earlier retirement than he’d expected, but he’ll be left alone, keep his reduced pension and so on, as long as he doesn’t tip his friends off that they’ve been rumbled.’
‘What if he did tell them?’
Bremner left the question unanswered. ‘Funny thing was — or so it seemed at first — he hadn’t taken a photostat of the telegram, just had notes on the back of an envelope. When you think about it, it’s quite smart. Since he’d have no hard evidence, in all the circumstances it’s a fair bet the FCO would’ve repudiated him and his allegation, denied it totally. Unless of course they’d been less obtuse than I’d give them credit for… You see, the row, sandal, would’ve blown up very quickly, there’d have been no way to avoid a full-scale enquiry, so the telegram would have come to light anyway, the FCO would finally have had the “truth” forced out of them — having prevaricated — and HMO would have been truly over the proverbial barrel.’
‘Vote of thanks to your friends, then.’
‘Actually it would’ve been like falling off a log. OK, it’s hindsight, but to have recruited such an obvious candidate for moledom was very clumsy. Although, mind you, if we hadn’t been on it as quickly as we were we’d still have been sitting ducks.’ He shrugged. ‘Really have to watch your back, these days, don’t you.’
‘Didn’t one always?’
‘Oh, I think it’s more cut-throat now. But there’s another line of investigation, quite interesting in its way. That brochure, Bluewater Cruises? They’ve dug out a travel agent who sold four tickets — returns, incidentally, Heathrow to Ercan via Istanbul — where incidentally we were let down very badly — to a woman who looked like a cow and had a strong line of bull, Bluewater Cruises’ British agent. Her line was she was setting it up as a pilot scheme, just one boat to start with, she’d share commission, only to get her clients out there and back again. Had an office address that’s turned out to have been rented for one month — since vacated, no traces, you’ll be surprised to hear. They have the four customers’ names, of course — no Swale among them, but Five have lines on two guys with military backgrounds who’ve deserted their usual haunts, could’ve been taken on as mercenaries, could be part of it, who knows… Charles, I suppose you realise the Hindawi trial verdict’s due tomorrow? And did you see that article of Worsthorne’s last Sunday, arguing that if it’s a “guilty” verdict Mrs T will be bound to kick ’em all out, ambassador first and foremost?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Last Sunday morning. Lull before the storm… ‘Suit them well to have us over that barrel at this moment, wouldn’t it?’
‘Let’s hope your Captain Ockley knows just how well.’
‘Major Hislop?’
One of the uniformed security men from inside… ‘Urgent call for you, sir, Commandant-General Royal Marines.’
‘Right—’
‘So long.’ Bremner raised a hand. ‘Don’t let him talk you into anything.’
*
There were about forty tents in the camp. Also, back from the road and on its own, a stone-built shack with a thatched roof and a guard at its door. It was about the size of a small garage, built with stones like those lying around, the wreckage of whatever had been there before. To the east of it the ground sloped down into a depression with a dried-up watercourse passing through it, and behind it the expanse of
rock slope climbed steeply towards the peak where the qal’at sprawled.
The guard, with a Kalashnikov on his knees: sat with his back to the wall near the door. Motionless for long periods, probably asleep. He was dressed the same way as the one who’d come to warm himself at the camp-fire in the pre-dawn darkness.
It wasn’t a military camp though. No more than two uniformed men had been sighted at any one time. There’d been very little movement of any kind, in fact, but what signs of life there were had been virtually all civilian. and old folk or infirm, em, slow-moving. Nobody had visited the camp and nobody had left it, and the door of the stone-built hut hadn’t once been opened. This wasn’t only Ben’s observation, but Chalky Judge, who’d had the last two hours’ watch, had confirmed it.
That sentry was still immobile. If there’s been a hostage in there, Ben thought, it would have been easy to have taken him out of it. Even in broad daylight that guard could have had his throat slit before he’d have opened an eye. The hut was a Swale trap, nothing else. There’d been a lot of time in which to study it and think about it, and he was convinced that whatever they wanted Swale for, that was where it was supposed to happen.
Better take a look inside there anyway. If time and other circumstances permitted.
He took a sip from his water-bottle, then re-corked it, making the most of the trickle of lubrication in his throat. It was 2 p.m. now: in London it would be noon. Cool, no doubt, autumnal. Here, the rocks were hot, heat-waves distorted one’s view of the valley, over which the pinnacle of rock on which the qal’at spread its ruined walls loomed commandingly. The slope leading up to it from the Homs road — Ben had climbed it in the dark, and Sticks was holed up on it now — was not only steep but craggy and deeply fissured. Whoever had picked that site for his castle had known what he was doing.
Special Deception Page 27
